Call to Duty: Fallujah, 2004
by maxn98
Summary: During the invasion of Fallujah, Iraq in 2004, the 3rd Battalion 5th Marines were sent into one of the deadliest and most notorious districts in the city and suffered many casualties. This is a fictionalized version of their story.
1. Chapter 1

PROLOGUE

On September 11, 2001, all of America held its breath as two hijacked commercial air-liners crashed into the World Trade Center, killing nearly three thousand people in the worst attack on US soil in history. The official explanation was that terrorists from a rouge organization known as _al-Qaeda_ had planned the attack over the course of several years, although a proper investigation was never launched. The United States then begins its "War on Terror" and invades Afghanistan. The Patriot Act is signed, allowing the government to spy on American citizens and implement martial law at any given time as a means of "security".

On March 20, 2003, the United States launches Operation Iraqi Freedom—in hopes of copying what Operation Desert Storm accomplished in the 1990s—and masses a coalition force of three hundred thousand soldiers from multiple countries. President George W. Bush authorizes the invasion without a declaration of war from Congress. The rationale for the invasion was to remove "a regime that developed and used weapons of mass destruction that harbored and supported terrorists, committed outrageous human rights abuse, and defied the just demands of the United Nations and the world."

CHAPTER ONE


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER ONE

David Maestas held his breath.

Cradling his rifle on his lap, he pulled back his sleeve and checked his watch, despising what he had to do in the next three seconds. But, despite the agonizing hope that he wouldn't have to do this, the second hand soon went from the three to the six in a quick succession.

_Three seconds_. He thought, sweat dripping from his forehead.

_Two seconds._ David flipped off the safety by the trigger of his M4.

_One second._ He leapt up from his spot of cover behind the rubble that once was a substantially large house, popped off a couple of rounds, and raced head-on towards the adjacent building across the street. Immediately—so quick David had wondered if they were waiting for him—ten Iraqi insurgents opened fire on him with a couple Ak-47s and an RPG. None of them were very accurate, though he had to give some credit to the rest of his platoon firing on the building from the opposite side of the street. So the bullets rippled around him, looking like rocks be-ing tossed into the water of a pond, and he watched as the RPG soared over his head and smashed into a nearby brick wall, exploding on impact.

Private David Maestas and his company were just passing through this town, whatever the hell it was called…something starting with an N…Nasiriyah? _It does not matter_, he told himself, shaking his head. Right before the insurgents had attacked, though, his platoon sergeant told him and one of the men in his Humvee, Private White, to go check a building down the road where he had spotted a man with a rifle go into.

Well that _one man_ turned into an entire pack of insurgents loading up on weapons. And they were too happy about seeing two American soldiers walking in on their little party.

So they all drew grenades and blew themselves up.

In the ensuing blast, Private White had both his arms and his right leg blown off and chunks of his face explode. His insides had splattered all over David's face and chest. When David woke up, he could hear the sounds of rockets and rifles being fired and watched as his company fled from dozens of attacking insurgents, leaving only a handful to distract them as David tried to regroup with his fellow soldiers.

But now, as he planted his face on the side of the wall of the building across from his position, David couldn't really seeing his wishes coming true, as though the single Humvee was coming closer and closer, so was the inevitable burst of pain as a bullet pierced his soft flesh.

But it never came.

Even as the Humvee came and went, bullets going to and fro, no bullet ever came close to hitting him.

Soon, though, the explosions and cracking of rifles being shot ceased. And all that was left was Private David Maestas and the unknown. He backed away from the wall, scanning the rooftops and the windows with his M4.

Lowering his rifle, he slapped his forehead and shut his eyes tight, frowning a little. _Stupid_ is what he mutely called himself. Looking back on it, he should have called out to the Humvee, waved at them, maybe even should have said "Hey," or anything. Anything that could have grabbed their attention, because now he was alone in an unfamiliar place with only the little ammo he had brought with him and a couple grenades. Check…one grenade.

David was known for this. He was known for his lack of common sense both in his unit and back at home. For as long as he could remember, his parents and his six other siblings would always get furious at him after he attempted to solve simple problems. He remembered getting hided for scaring the dog away from the cows with the bucket of milk he had just obtained, when he captured a fox trying to kill some hens with the chickens' eggs. But probably the worst thing he did was attempt to grab a bag of yeast to make pastries from atop a cabinet when he was six. To get it he had to climb up on the counter, take a stool and reach for it. The yeast was in a small jar next to both the salt, the sugar, and, surprisingly, the car oil. He grabbed the yeast, but in doing so, he knocked over the salt and the car oil all over the already baking bread down below. But David didn't notice it. So he quickly applied the yeast to the bread and turned up the heat on the stove. Four seconds later, the fire from the stove met the oil and the entire portion of the kitchen was scorched in flames, burning right through the chrome finish.

In the unit, he was known for completing obstacle courses wrong; like going over the barbed wire, not under it; going around the rope climbing exercise; and stepping on the tires laid out to be stepped through. His company didn't love him for it, but it had earned him an interesting nickname, "the Bull", because of his tendency to rush into things headfirst very noisily. Like a bull charging on its bull fighter. At first he hadn't liked the nickname, but soon it began to grow on him, and whenever someone referred to him or talked to him in conversation they'd call him David or, more often than not, "Bull".

But what he had just done now hid all the other things, swelled up, and became worse than all they were in an instant. Because now he had put his life at risk and wouldn't probably make it out of this mess.

_I have to at least try_. He thought to himself. Shutting his eyes once again he thought back deep within the folds of his mind, trying to picture the map his squad had been given of Nasiriyah. He remembered there position on the map, but also remembered a river nearby which could lead him back to where the Coalition had built a small checkpoint.

So, checking his current magazine for ammo, he crossed the street again, loading his M4 once more and locking the mag back in its place.

It seemed like the entire city was erupting with explosions and the distant popping of gunfire. But the street itself was quiet; the insurgents had left, following the sounds of the possible chaos they could ensue. This left David alone and, at the moment, safe from harm.

But Dave couldn't manage to shrug off any impending dangers that might fall upon him, so he made it more of his goal to look like he was prepared than to actually be prepared. In his mind, the Iraqis would leave him alone if they feared what he was capable of. His M4 seemingly attached to his shoulder and his eyes glued to the scope of his weapon.

Nothing happened.

He marched down the road for what seemed like an eternity, flinching at what-ever caught his attention through the corner of his eye. But nothing actually caused him any danger.

David soon found himself rounding a street corner.

Suddenly, the distinctive sound of two Ak-47s broke out, their muzzle flashes coming from a third story window. At that moment, David sped up into a run as bullets raced all around him. He hadn't seen where the firing had come from, but he wasn't sticking around to find out. A grenade bounced off the hood of a nearby truck and landed at his feet. But by the time it exploded, he was out of the range of the explosion. Then, as he got farther and farther down the street, more and more gunfire began to erupt from windows all around him.

A large white pick-up truck swerved out of an alleyway and came to a screeching stop, its occupants jumping out, and drawing their weapons. David instantly realized that he had made a big mistake leaving the safety of the building to come out here. But he wasted no time dodging the bullets and taking cover in a nearby alley. Thankfully, the Iraqis didn't feel that one man was worth a chase, so David was out of danger for the moment and ever closer to his destination.

David began moving through all sorts of alleys and back roads with gunfire seeming to always be just one step behind him the whole way. A few times he could hear bullets whizzing by while panicked civilians ran every which way with no idea what to do when an armed "capitalist devil" came running through their neighborhood. Everything was passing in a blur as he ran. A market, some old mama-haji's kitchen, and a café of some kind all passed in a blur.

He had to push his way through the huge crowds, moving maybe three feet per five minutes. Which, though a big overstatement, it was still very slow.

Unable to take it and with dozens of insurgents following him, David raised his carbine into the air and fired a burst into the air, scattering the crowd substantially. He wasn't exactly multilingual, but David knew how to communicate with the Iraqis on a basic level.

He yelled something that was similar to "Get out of here! Now,"

Even though he sounded pretty mean when he told them to "get out" David had a feeling that his gun had more influence on them at that moment. As a path cleared for him, David quickly ran to a small side-street. He knew the general direction to the checkpoint and he just kept hoping that he could make it quickly. He didn't know how long the soldiers in the checkpoint would be staying there, and there was always a big possibility that David would get shot in the back or left alone in this godforsaken city.

And that was definitely something he didn't want to happen.

He burst through another winding maze of alleys on to yet _another_ street. He was given a break, however, because David was now looking at the checkpoint in the distance. The street was already empty when he got there because of the two machine gun nests set up on either side of the road. He went running up to the checkpoint as fast as he could, towards the first American David saw. He could see two soldiers in the distance.

David began yelling and screaming, waving his arms up so the Americans could see him. But suddenly, he couldn't run anymore. A burn spiked up through his left leg and David suddenly lost all sense of balance. He was barely able to stop face-planting in to the street. The two soldiers began running up towards him and David suddenly realized what had just happened. It seemed like David's luck hadn't panned out.

He rolled over onto his back, using his good leg to avoid any unnecessary damage. David supported himself on one arm and drew out his M9 handgun from its thigh holster. He wasn't really "aiming" at the oncoming insurgents but could tell that he had hit at least one of them. The main objective of him shooting at them was to give his fellow soldiers some time to get to him.

Which they eventually did do, it just took them longer than David had hoped it would.

He was nearly out of ammo and a puddle of blood had already formed around his body. Without talking to him, the two soldiers grabbed him by both the shoulders and the legs and picked David up. But by the time they had started to move, he was already drifting into unconsciousness.

All he remembered from that moment was the booming sounds of gunfire and explosions.


End file.
